


Lowlights

by flowerboysandramyun



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - MAMA (Music Video), Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, First Time, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Porn With Plot, Romance, Supernatural Abilities, Teleportation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-14 09:39:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4559733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerboysandramyun/pseuds/flowerboysandramyun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An impromptu summer trip, complete with training him to control his powers, is apparently what it takes for Baekhyun to figure out that he's crazy about him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Goodbyes

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks once again to Astrid for putting up with my whining on the daily and the complete lack of splinching. Here, have some Kaibaek Powers!AU.

Baekhyun was never good at voicing his feelings.

 

 

Jongin breaks the news to him on a Sunday afternoon after a morning of sleeping in, catching the last half of the game while waiting for pizza to come, and an impromptu massage from Jongin as his third congratulations that week for surviving another year. He hadn’t planned to stay to night—or rather, the entire weekend—but it’s hardly a blip in his routine these days. Baekhyun never plans it, really. Sure, it’s usually Jongin that’s over at his place, (mostly because one of his roommates, Kyungsoo, cooks a better galbi jiggae than anyone and everyone’s mom) and week after week it’s typically Baekhyun’s couch that’s getting slept on. They broke their near semester-long record over finals just last week, but Baekhyun blames it on the bedhead and fangs that accompanied those three all nighters in a row and two plus gallons of coffee.

 

 

“Hyung?” Jongin murmurs, fingers threaded deep in the knots in Baekhyun’s right shoulder. He merely groans in return.

 

 

When several seconds of unanswered silence pass by with Jongin’s hands suddenly digging in like hammers, Baekhyun twists his head around to see Jongin’s face contorted in confusion. “What is it? Something wrong? Ah—hey,” he says after a particularly forceful jab just beneath his shoulder blade. He’s clearly not paying enough attention to be the most meticulous masseuse. Jongin shakes his head and looks at the TV like there’s something to see. Shifts a bit, takes a deep breath.

 

 

“Nothing, I was just…” he pauses, seemingly taken by the floating dust illuminated by the light coming in from the open window. “Hyung, where are you going? For the summer break?”

 

 

And then a switch flips (literally, too, because Baekhyun's busy thoughts occasionally translate into an overhead light buzzing to life). Jongin's worried. Knowing Jongin, he's probably been worried, fretting over the question and the answer for weeks. Baekhyun's spent the better part of his free time with Jongin over the past year—Jongin's freshman year—trying to help him get a hold on the whole teleportation thing, and it doesn't hit him until right then how much time they've really been glued to each other.

 

 

Baekhyun shakes Jongin's hands off before his muscles can be assaulted again. "Probably just sticking around, since I've got the apartment and all. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, too. I mean, what's the point of going home when I have a personal chef and the freedom to play League past midnight?" Jongin cracks a smile at that.

 

 

"Don't you want to see your family?" he asks, moving to twist his arms around the nearest pillow, hugging it close. Baekhyun acts like he's thinking, puts in the extra effort to crease his brow and put a finger to his mouth like he's really weighing his options. He shakes his head.

 

 

"I'll be a senior next year. Trust me, you'll get to that point when you don't feel like going home. You'll realise how annoying they really are," he says easily, pushing himself out of Jongin's lap to stretch.

 

 

Jongin waits a moment before nodding slowly in reply. The way his face is twisting right now—it’s like he’s looking for someone’s permission. Someone to tell him if it’s okay to keep talking. "Well, I'm going home for the holiday. Back to Busan to see my parents," he mumbles. Oh.

 

 

Oh.

 

 

He's not sure why he assumed anything different, especially since Jongin's in the dorms and freshly nineteen, but Baekhyun grinds his teeth anyway and wonders what he's supposed to do after he gets a job and gets off of work. No Jongin, just Chanyeol and Kyungsoo. It shouldn't bother him as much as it does, but he's suddenly trying very hard not to think about the prospect of not spending every other afternoon in one place or another, trying to get Jongin to transport himself without a single nosebleed or passing out. It's become his routine, and for a lack of a better way to explain it, he doesn’t like upsetting his routine.

 

 

"That's a little…far." It's all he says. All he can say.

 

 

Jongin lies across the couch and continues to press the pillow to his chest, now staring directly at Baekhyun. "Well, it's not like you can't visit me. Or maybe I can visit you. It's just a few months." And even Jongin doesn't sound so sure of himself.

 

 

"Are you sure that's a good idea? Two whole months away from…us?" He almost says 'me'—himself—but Chanyeol is right there in the back of his mind, setting something on fire as he rambles about taking some of the credit. Jongin cocks an eyebrow.

 

 

"Why wouldn't it be?"

 

 

"I don't know, let's ask Sehun's dick," Baekhyun says, then quickly whips around just be sure that Jongin's roommate isn't around.

 

 

Jongin shoves the pillow in Baekhyun's direction and catches him off guard, nearly sending him of the couch entirely. "Oh come on, that was one time! It's not like I wanted to zap myself into his bed while he had a girl over. In fact, I've been trying my hardest to forget, thank you." Baekhyun grins, pushing the pillow back in Jongin's direction.

 

 

"And your poor dance teacher?"

 

 

"At least I didn't see him naked. That was just awkward," he defends lamely, suppressing a smile.

 

 

"Okay, but you've phased a couple of times in public. How would your parents feel about you disappearing at the dinner table in the middle of some story about how amazing I am?”

 

 

Jongin sits straight up, glaring at him. “You think I’m gonna talk about you to my parents?” he scoffs with a haughty expression to match. Baekhyun nuzzles up against Jongin’s leg. It’s a pretty teasing gesture, considering he would rarely do it under any other circumstance, but he still catches the little curl of Jongin’s lips before he snuggles in closer and shuts his eyes. Jongin’s just one big softie that way. A little skinship and he caves.

 

 

“Of course. Everyone talks about me. You probably won’t even be able to resist introducing me to them. And your sisters.” It's quiet for a little too long, so Baekhyun perks up and sees him staring. He's been doing that lately—just staring at him with this faint smile and crows feet. Honestly, it's beginning to worry him.

 

 

As is this trip, actually. Two months away from the only people who have a fraction of understanding what it means when Jongin’s talking one moment and gone the next. He’s staged at least two power outages more than his usual yearly quota, but if Jongin is holed up at his parents in Busan he won’t be able to do a single thing about it if Jongin screws anything up. He shouldn’t be so anxious about the very idea of it, yet here he is, heart hammering in his chest at the thought.

 

 

“Maybe you should stay,” he says, hoping for it come off casual, but he’s sure he must sound desperate. “You could always go up for a weekend or something, but. You know. Come back and stay with us.” He can feel Jongin shifting uncomfortably again.

 

 

“Hyung…” he starts, but he doesn’t get a chance to finish. Not before Sehun is bursting into the room, in all his loud-mouthed glory. Baekhyun hears something out of his mouth about whether or not the couch is still a safe place to sit, but Jongin’s on him and throwing punches before he even has a chance to respond. He would normally say something witty to put Sehun in his place, but his head’s a mess of thoughts and not the comically inspired kind.

 

 

A year with Jongin, fighting through his ups and downs as he tried to navigate his abilities. Luckily the dance program had kept him around for winter break, but Baekhyun hadn’t even considered the complications that might’ve come if he’d left for even just those couple of weeks. Now weeks are turned to months and he’s almost positive that if Jongin isn’t right next to him for every second of it, something’s bound to happen. But when he eyes Jongin from across the room, whose arms have Sehun wrapped tightly in a headlock, he receives a smile. It doesn’t ease his concerns, but his makes his stomach flip just a little. And all of it should really worry him, but it doesn’t. Not right now.

 

 

Busan. Two months. Not ideal, but doable. When Baekhyun leaves Jongin’s dorm that night, he almost forgets to say goodnight.

 

 

 

 

Looking back, Baekhyun thinks that his first meeting with Jongin might’ve still happened regardless—fate, he might even call it—although delayed by a month or so. Stuffed in the farthest seats away from the stage of some school dance recital that Chanyeol’d insisted on seeing as a favour to the director whom he’d incidentally set fire to only a week prior (despite his utter distaste for the very idea), he'd found himself looking straight at him—Kim Jongin.

 

 

Chanyeol had tried to convince him earlier that morning that it’d been ‘a slip of the fingers’—what happened to the director—but Baekhyun knows better than to count on Chanyeol’s self control on less than three hours of sleep and thanked God that the poor guy was still under the impression that Chanyeol had curiously ignited him with a matchstick he’d thought was a toothpick (and not his own finger). And between mulling over Chanyeol’s innate gift for alibis and his sheer stupidity for trying to function properly being so exhausted, his eyes sort of find their way to settling on that one kid—front and center stage for a majority of the performance and far more interesting a case than his brainless roommate’s sleep-deprived fuck ups.

 

 

However, that’s not the first time he sees him, all crows feet and perfectly tanned skin, sanity ranging from smiles to panic to excessive bowing and stuttering. No—in fact, it’s Baekhyun’s third late night in the practice rooms, head pulsing from all the high notes and body swaying like he’s on the verge of passing out. Sleep isn't an option with a recital of his own only a few weeks away. Not yet, at least. He's barely managed to jump the high note in this piece when Jongin comes crashing in, landing gracefully against the ivory keys of the grand in the corner.

 

 

It only takes a moment for him to recover, standing up slowly with music in hand and brushing off his only clean pair of jeans as he looks up at a boy younger than him by maybe a few years. He looks severely startled, leaning against the door of the practice room for support, chest heaving and mouth gaping like a fish out of water. Magic tricks aren’t really Baekhyun’s thing, so when some kid randomly materalises in front of him like a rabbit out of the depths of a top hat, he decides almost instantly that there’re only a few logical explanations. Only one of which he really, seriously considers.

 

 

“So how long have you known?” Baekhyun’s voice cuts through the moments of silence that follow. He couldn’t sound more bored if he tried.

 

 

The kid’s head shoots up, eyes wide and utterly astounded by the fact that there could possibly be another human being in the room. It should be Baekhyun’s first inclination to welcome him, maybe even ask about his well-being and sympathise with him, but he also vaguely recalls getting Chanyeol a World’s Best Girlfriend mug for his birthday. Chanyeol had called it poor judgement; he calls it spontaneity. With a whole lot of straightforwardness.

 

 

“Huh…?”

 

 

“About your abilities?” he suggests lightly. “Gift? Power? No?” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, cards a hand through already messy hair and shuffles forward, a visible glint in his eye. It’s not that obvious, apparently.

 

 

“I don’t—uh. Who are you? Wait—where am I? No—”

 

 

Baekhyun makes a show of it after realising what he’s dealing with, picking the limp figure off the piano and interrogating him as he drapes him over one shoulder. “Don’t tell me this is your first time,” he says to the nameless intruder, a mischievous glint in his eyes as he sends a quick glance in his direction. “You certainly crash landed like a pro. Never met a teleporter before, but I’d imagined they’d be a little smoother," he says, jabbing a finger into the kid's side and grinning as he flinches. "You got a name?”

 

 

Baekhyun smiles when Jongin stumbles uselessly over his words—Don’t know what you’re talking about, Baekhyun hears him say. "Jongin. Kim Jongin." It's clear that talking this out will be counterproductive, so Baekhyun is already working at flicking his wrist at the ceiling and watches as a stuttering light show sets off over their heads. And then Jongin's screaming like an adolescent girl.

 

 

So, with arms outstretched and a particularly frustrated groan stuck in his throat, he surges forward and seals the deal, grabs a hold of Jongin’s arm, and feels a jolt go through both of them like an electric shock. If he's learned anything in college, it's that a little bit of stress is always an effective kick starter.

 

 

That’s how it starts. The same fizzling pop that was heard when Jongin first came crashing into that practice room, the way that the air practically tears itself apart to make room for something that shouldn’t be there. Jongin fades in and out, switches back and forth between transparency and solidity and is completely unconscious as they land feet first in the middle of what he assumes is Jongin’s dorm. After a few minutes of making sure his limbs are all in the right place and gathering his thoughts, he brushes past what he believes to be Jongin’s roommate who’s recently appeared in the doorway (Sehun, he unfortunately finds out only days later) and nearly chokes on his own tongue trying to sort out the near corpse on the bed, but doesn’t even try to say anything as Baekhyun hands him a small scrap of paper with his name and number on it.

 

 

“Tell him to give me a call when he wakes up. He’s gonna need someone to talk to,” he says calmly.

 

 

He barely gets to enjoy the priceless expression on Sehun’s face. He’s out the door in a few seconds and already has Chanyeol on the phone by the time he’s in the hall.

 

 

“It’s like squeezing your brain through a tube,” he gushes as he stalks down the hall, heading home and moving his fingers between the keys in his pocket. “I mean, don’t get me wrong—it’s cool—but I can’t imagine turning myself to mush and ending up with a killer headache every time I wanted to zap myself somewhere. And this kid still doesn’t even believe that’s what’s happening—the teleportation. It took a little encouragement from me to get him to even reproduce it.”

 

 

There’s a light cough of laughter over the speaker. “Please tell me you didn’t blind him by accident. I still feel bad for Jongdae.”

 

 

“No, you idiot. And that was temporary. More like an electric current sort of thing. This was a little more…shocking,” Baekhyun scoffs, pitching his voice low as a couple walks by and sends him a look. He can hear Chanyeol groaning on the other end. “But what’s most important here is that he’s clueless and in denial.”

 

 

He can practically hear Chanyeol’s eyeballs rolling in their sockets. “How else did he explain the fact that one minute he was in your room and the next, back at his dorm?”

 

 

“Well, he couldn’t. Not really.”

 

 

“What do you mean?” Baekhyun grins, even though Chanyeol can’t see it. It’s probably clear enough in his voice.

 

 

“Passed out on the way back. Couldn’t even keep his eyes open for the first few seconds. I had to practically throw him back onto his bed before getting the hell out of there and avoiding his dumbstruck roommate,” he says. What happened with Kyungsoo and Luhan last year seems like ages ago to Baekhyun, and without breathing a word of it Chanyeol who will inevitable mock him for his seemingly hidden, charitable nature, Baekhyun makes a mental note to make Jongin his new project. A teleporter is something shiny—something new. He’s not about to pass up a chance like this.

 

 

So without further touching on the subject, he rambles on to Chanyeol about budgeting, arguing shortly about the importance of his online drama membership versus filling up on something other than instant rice, and hangs up just before walking into their dorm.

 

 

 

 

“No, I’m keeping the Batman underwear,” Baekhyun says sleepily over the phone, Wednesday morning. If it weren’t for the Girls’ Generation ringtone blasting off to his right, he’s pretty sure he’d still be asleep. He’s almost surprised that Jongin isn’t still asleep until he remembers what day it is. Rows of packed boxes and one trip to his apartment already, it’s the day that Jongin up and leaves him for two solid months. It’s the day that he goes home to his unassuming family and likely upends all of their hard work over the past nine months by teleporting himself into the neighbour’s shower. Or something like that.

 

 

Jongin has a surprising amount of shit laying around Baekhyun’s apartment. Or rather, had. He’s retrieved most of it in these last two days of packing, but here he is on the phone with him at seven in the morning, listening to him go on about missing socks, a sweatshirt, and apparently a pair of underwear.

 

 

“If we as much said we were moving out, he would probably have his stuff moved in here the same night. I mean, he practically lives here anyway,” Chanyeol had said sometime back in March. Baekhyun had aimed for his head when he’d thrown the pillow from the couch, but he’d managed to hit Kyungsoo square in the face instead. After a brutal session of near suffocation, Kyungsoo had even agreed. Jongin was commonplace in their apartment now, and between studying for music theory exams and sticking around while Jongin practised for recitals and going back home together, there was hardly room for argument.

 

 

“I’ll be over in a bit, ‘kay?” he hears his gruff morning voice say over the receiver, and Baekhyun just groans in reply, hanging up soon after.

 

 

When he makes his way to the kitchen to whip up some coffee, Chanyeol is already situated at the table, phone in hand and grinning at the screen. He looks up just in time to see Baekhyun glaring at him. “You’re up early,” Baekhyun mutters, pulling down a mug from one of the cupboards.

 

 

“As are you, princess,” he says, setting his phone down and mindlessly drawing flaming patterns in the air. Showoff. Baekhyun can’t really complain though; he’s probably just as bad as Chanyeol on a good day. The difference is that Chanyeol’s messing around usually ends in charred household items and first degree burns. An utter disaster.

 

 

Baekhyun lifts his arms over his head, stretching. “Yeah, well, Jongin decided to give me a nice wakeup call,” he explains, switching on the coffee maker. There’s a pregnant pause. He breathes in. “He’s leaving today.” Even out of the corner of his eye, he can see Chanyeol’s expression twisting into something critical, something scrutinising.

 

 

“Having a little separation anxiety, are we?” Baekhyun just rolls his eyes in reply. Sure, he’s endured years of this, but for some reason, he’s not having any of it today.

 

 

“Hardly. I’m glad to get the kid out of my hair. I’ll finally be able to eat the food that I buy,” he retorts. It’s not a complete lie; Jongin’s always been somewhat of an expert at eating his entire food supply. It’s because I’m a growing boy, he would defend, followed by a friendly swing at his shoulder from Baekhyun. That’s one thing he certainly won’t miss. He hears Chanyeol stifle a laugh behind him.

 

 

“Yeah, you sound really thrilled about it,” he says, voice laced with skepticism. “He’s not that far. We could always visit.” It sounds like Chanyeol’s sad attempt at comforting, but Baekhyun chooses to ignore it. He’s not stupid; he knows what he’s getting at.

 

 

“He can visit us,” Baekhyun supplies, taking a sip of his bitter drink. Coffee never really was his thing. “He’s the one that can zap himself from one coordinate to the next. If he wants to see us, he can teleport. I don’t trust him not to end up in the Dean’s office, but…” He takes another sip. Feels almost as bitter as this cup of espresso. Chanyeol’s eyes are on him again—he can practically feel him staring—but he once again ignores it. So, he’s being a little transparent. Not like Chanyeol isn’t; especially when it comes to Kyungsoo even if no one likes to say it out loud.

 

 

Chanyeol moves toward the counter and puts his own mug in the sink, leaning back against the counter. Smirks. “Whatever. I mean, you two are just friends. And you only met last year—has it really been a whole school year already? Wow… Anyway, it won’t kill you to be apart for a summer,” Chanyeol says, folding his arms. If he believed in that sort of thing, he might think Chanyeol is twisting the knife right now. Baekhyun lets out an audible sigh and shoots his roommate a look. He can feel himself caving a little to Chanyeol’s poor attempt at reverse psychology, and he hates himself for it.

 

 

“Let’s face it: he still has no idea what he’s doing. He’s probably gonna phase in front of his parents or some stranger and then get shipped off to some insane asylum—” he starts, running a hand through his hair.

 

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s the problem? You’re worried about Jongin losing control of his powers?” Chanyeol promptly interrupts. Baekhyun waits out the silence, starts to open his mouth to refute it, but Chanyeol cuts him off again. “I mean, which of us is really ever sure of we’re doing? We’ve gotten a little better at handling it over the years, but Jongin’s not much different from us in terms of figuring out the whole supernatural abilities thing.”

 

 

Baekhyun shifts so he can look Chanyeol square in the eyes. “Yeah, but we’ve got time on our side. Jongin’s still so new at it. If he’s away from us for that long, who knows what could go wrong. Do you know what Yixing said about teleporters? What can happen to some of them?”

 

 

Chanyeol scoffs and straightens out. “As if he’s an expert.” Baekhyun nearly slams his cup down, but he catches himself and sets it down carefully, taking a deep breath.

 

 

“Not the point. He said that if Jongin’s not careful—if he doesn’t concentrate well enough, parts of him could get left behind. Limbs, Chanyeol. Sliced right through the wormhole. Leave it to a young, dumb kid like Jongin to do something like that. Get so cocky about his abilities that he just sends one half of himself across the ocean and the other half is stuck in his room somewhere. He hasn’t even practised going as far as Busan to Seoul. He’d probably pass out and lose a leg,” Baekhyun says, voice rising in volume. He hadn’t noticed that he was getting so loud, but Kyungsoo is at the door to attest to it.

 

 

“Someone wanna explain why I’ve been woken up at 7:30AM?” he growls from the doorframe, shoving his way past them to get at the fridge. Chanyeol obliges.

 

 

“Baekhyun is deathly afraid that Jongin is gonna murder himself over the break,” he offers. Kyungsoo shrugs like it’s a plausible explanation, but Baekhyun is ready to fight everyone on it before a single word gets out.

 

 

“Thanks for twisting my words, dickhead. I said,” Baekhyun spits, “that Jongin isn’t very experienced when it comes to teleporting and he’s bound to get himself into trouble. Let’s not forget the earthquake of your freshman year.” Baekhyun nods in Kyungsoo’s direction and watches him smile fondly at the memory. “And Chanyeol, it was just a couple of months ago that you set Jongin’s dance teacher on fucking fire.”

 

 

Chanyeol considers it for a moment and then shrugs. “Yeah, but doesn’t that just prove my point?” Kyungsoo pushes past them again as he heads for the table.

 

 

“And what’s your point?” Kyungsoo asks, bored. Like he’s the mediator. The coffee doesn’t seem to be helping anyone. Chanyeol just shoots a sly smile in Baekhyun’s direction and slides into the seat next to Kyungsoo.

 

 

“That this could happen to any one of us, at any time. Time is irrelevant if you’re not concentrating. Baek’s worrying too much.” Kyungsoo nods, once again accepting Chanyeol’s words as if they’re fact. God, it really must be too early. Kyungsoo would’ve normally drop kicked the both of them by now. Had a little common sense, too.

 

 

“This is a little unsettling, actually,” Kyungsoo mumbles around the rim of his mug. “Byun Baekhyun. Worrying. Did I completely imagine that little one night stand with your music history TA? The whole wife thing didn't worry you?” Okay, so maybe it’s Baekhyun’s job to drop kick someone this morning. “The only thing you worry about is whether or not Home Plus has your hair gel in stock. Why the sudden interest in human beings?”

 

 

Baekhyun grits his teeth. He’s really not as heartless as his roommates make him out to be, but if you were to only hear about him through the two of them, you'd think that Baekhyun is the most unfeeling, unpleasant, greasy human in inexistence. “Firstly, the guy didn't wear a wedding ring, never mentioned a wife. Nothing," he groans, tired of repeating himself. "But most importantly, this isn’t about Jongin, this is about us. If he makes a show of it, we could all be found out,” he spews, indignant. Maybe a different plan of attack can convince them.

 

 

Kyungsoo sighs like it takes all the effort in the world. “He does have a point.” The way that Chanyeol is glaring at him is anything but menacing.

 

 

“Okay, yeah. Sure. But that doesn’t change the fact that Baekhyun has become emotionally attached to the thing and he’s probably wishing he could teleport himself to Busan just to ‘keep an eye’ on it,” Chanyeol says matter-of-factly. When Kyungsoo nods again, Baekhyun barely has a chance to roll his eyes, jaw hanging and words stuck in his throat before the front door opens and a familiar voice floats through into the kitchen.

 

 

“Who’s emotionally attached to what?” Jongin quips, stepping into the room and wearing a smile like it’s the easiest thing. Do his eyes always crinkle like that when he smiles?

 

 

He spots the bag on his shoulder almost immediately and remembers when he bought it for him. It was Christmas, and despite Jongin being painfully homesick, he had to stay on campus for some dance competition. He’d also managed to sprain his ankle the week prior and became this sad little heap on Baekhyun’s couch for almost three days, refusing to move and insisting on watching hours of Pororo. At that time, Jongin mostly came over only to practise teleporting with Baekhyun so it was a terribly pitiful sight to see the young kid sprawled out and pouting on his couch for more than a day, no energy to do anything. He isn’t sure where exactly he saw it, but he ended up coming back from a grocery run with a leather satchel to replace Jongin’s ratty, old high school backpack and maybe create some semblance of Christmas.

 

 

And then he quickly shakes the memory away. It’s when he remembers things like that that it feels more like he’s known Jongin since his elementary days rather than just the past year. Now, that bag contains all his useless schoolwork Baekhyun's managed to help him with and he's leaving with it.

 

 

“Your underwear are on my bed,” he mumbles, earning looks from both Chanyeol and Kyungsoo. His heart swells a little just seeing the blush spread across Jongin’s face, and the lights conveniently flicker a nice shade of pink in response.

 

 

“Okay, let’s all control our hormones, shall we?” Kyungsoo says, making his way to the fridge again, grumbling about shopping when he looks inside. Jongin’s grown used to their teasing, but it doesn’t stop him from shuffling from one foot to the other, chewing at his thumb, turning bright red. Despite Baekhyun’s constant warnings to stay out of their way, Jongin’s somehow become another member of their group and apart from poking fun at him all the time, he fits in considerably well. It wouldn’t have been his first choise, but they’ve all helped Jongin in one way or another and that counts for more.

 

 

Baekhyun pushes himself off the counter and trails after Jongin, who’s already trudging to his room. “Wait up, I’ll help you look for your stuff.” He ignores Chanyeol’s waving hands and idiotic grin and locks arms with Jongin on their way to his room.

 

 

Busan. Two months. Not ideal, but doable.

 

 

 

 

It’s mid February, and the earth feels like a giant ice cube. Baekhyun asks Kyungsoo to melt the snow around their apartment building, but all he gets is a knee to his gut. Chanyeol nearly burns down the building with his makeshift fireplace in the living room, and Baekhyun is speed-writing a paper that’s due at seven the next morning at his and Chanyeol’s shared desk, laptop in front of him—Jongin hanging at the edge of his bed.

 

 

He’s been there since he finished class at four and Baekhyun’s pretty sure he’s been playing Candy Crush on his phone for the past two hours. He’d wanted to practise teleporting from the apartment to his dorm for the fourth time that week, but Baekhyun informed him that he had to write his paper, although he was welcome to stick around. And stick around he did.

 

 

Jongin finally loses his often nonexistent patience and props himself up on his hands, cradling his chin in them, and begins to pout. “Hyung." Typing. Rustling papers. "Hyung.”

 

 

“What?” Baekhyun manages through clenched teeth. Music history really isn’t his best subject and this paper just might be the death of him.

 

 

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asks quietly, stretching out across the bed and strangely resembling a cat.

 

 

It goes without saying that Jongin is a welcome presence on days like this, even though anyone else would probably make Baekhyun want to tear his hair out from his scalp. Something about Jongin’s soft voice, his easy way of talking Baekhyun into anything—it’s refreshing. Sometimes he forgets that he’s the same kid that tried to push him away outside that gelato place that he and Chanyeol went to after the dance recital back in September. They ran into each other coincidentally, but after what happened in the practise room, this just conveniently sped things up. Baekhyun remembers making a terrible joke about Jongin not calling back after such a great night, watching gleefully as Sehun’s jaw dropped beside him and Jongin’s ears turned pink. Sure, he finally got Jongin to agree to meet up to discuss the whole teleportation thing, but it took some effort and a lot of horrible jokes on his part. All of which Jongin laughed at. That had to be a record for any one person in Baekhyun’s book.

 

 

Baekhyun laughs softly, stretches his own arms up over his head and across his chest as he cranes his head around to catch a glimpse of Jongin trying to suppress a yawn. It’s almost midnight, and even though he’d told Jongin that he could go home hours ago, he’s still here. “You could zap yourself to the nearest convenient store and grab me all the energy drinks they have,” he muses, grinning when Jongin looks up at him and smiles. In the blink of an eye, Jongin appears in a little cloud of separating dust only inches away from him and giggles when Baekhyun shouts in his dialect, releasing a steady stream of curses.

 

 

“You just need to loosen up,” Jongin mutters through upturned lips. Baekhyun reaches out to take a swing at him.

 

 

“What did I tell you about doing that?” he snaps. “One of these days I’m going to drop dead from a heart attack!” Jongin just keeps laughing as he reaches out and digs his hands into Baekhyun’s shoulders, giving him a much-needed massage. So this is why Baekhyun keeps Jongin around.

 

 

“I thought you’d be proud of me,” Jongin says, turning Baekhyun’s head around with his left hand so he can focus on his paper again. His heart is still beating a thousand miles a minute and the AC is on too high for this time of year. Jongin’s fingers feel like heaven as they work through the knots along his spine and he vaguely wonders if he’ll ever finish his paper.

 

 

“Red Bull would be more effective,” Baekhyun mutters. “At this rate, I’m going to fall asleep.” He sighs as Jongin hits a particularly tight muscle.

 

 

“Weren’t you the one that told me how bad that stuff is for you?” he challenges, leaning in. Unless he’s imagining it in his overly exhausted state (a sure possibility), he’s almost sure that Jongin’s smelling his hair. “Something about how caffeine and alcohol making our powers harder to control?”

 

 

Baekhyun groans. “That really only applies to you. I’ve been at this for much longer than you have. You need to focus on getting through school without all the chemical energy and intoxication.” The words feel hypocritical the minute they leave his lips, and Jongin’s follow-up question only serves to prove that.

 

 

“Don’t tell me that you were such a good boy your freshman year,” Jongin says, nuzzling his chin in the dip of Baekhyun’s neck. He tries his best to pretend his breath doesn’t catch in his throat.

 

 

“A few unfortunate parties and drinks and people’s names I can’t remember,” he explains, sounding bored, “but I’m wiser now. I’m here to keep you from making those same mistakes.”

 

 

Jongin scoffs. Doesn't believe him for a second. “Red Bull, then?”

 

 

Baekhyun laughs, starts to respond, but his eyes go wide as he registers the words and turns to look at Jongin. The moment he does, there’s no one to look at. He’s disappeared, leaving with the smallest sound in his wake to signify his absence. Baekhyun nearly uproots his chair when he stands, fists clenched at his sides and head swimming. It was a joke, the whole energy drink thing. But when Baekhyun fishes around in his pockets, he notices that his wallet’s gone. Jongin’s definitely improved since their first few weeks of mentoring, but Baekhyun still doesn’t trust him to safely make the trip to the corner store and back without a nosebleed or a splitting headache (and he doesn't even want to think of the times Jongin's puked his guys out), even if Jongin repeatedly says It’s alright, I’m fine. It’s nothing.

 

 

With one hand curling in his hair in frustration, he paces for a few minutes just to ease the tension. He’s not sure why he’s so bent up about the idea of Jongin teleporting himself a couple blocks down, but he thinks that it might be the prospect of his work being a total waste if Jongin ends up dead.

 

 

He’s just about to pull out his phone when he’s knocked off his feet and onto the bed, a heavy weight pressing against his ribcage, making it nearly impossible to breathe. “Jongin. Jongin, off. OFF,” he manages, wheezing through tight teeth and waving his arms around to get his attention. Jongin hops right off, mumbling apologies. Nevertheless, as soon as Baekhyun sits up, he notices the plastic bag gripped in Jongin’s hand. Okay, so he’s not completely useless.

 

 

“What were you thinking?” Baekhyun says scrambling to his feet and grabbing Jongin by the chin. He looks him up and down, searching for a single sign that says this is just as dangerous as Baekhyun keeps reminding him it is. When he doesn’t see anything, the hand drops. "You know how stupid that was, right?"

 

 

Jongin just nods sheepishly.

 

 

"And you know that weather can have an effect in your abilities, right?"

 

 

Another tiny nod. If he had any sleep and a praiseworthy essay under his belt, he might laugh. He sighs instead.

 

 

"At least you got the right thing," he grumbles, reaching into the bag and pulling out a six pack of Red Bull. He proceeds to wrap a steady arm around Jongin's shoulder and pulls him in close. "Now help me finish these off before Chanyeol finds them. We've got a paper to write."

 

 

Jongin doesn't say much else, just grins so wide that the ends of his mouth touch his ears as he pulls up a chair next to Baekhyun. Baekhyun's not sure when it happened, but he's happy to be anywhere that Baekhyun is.

 

 

"He's almost like your own little tamagotchi," Chanyeol chides the next day. "Sticks to you, always taking care of him."

 

 

Baekhyun finished the paper sometime around 6, Jongin crashed on the floor with the cans littered around him like a funeral pyre. He's barely awake right now and whatever Chanyeol is saying is hardly registering.

 

 

"A what?"

 

 

"You know, a tamagotchi. Those little…?" Chanyeol clues in on Baekhyun's confused expression and frowns. "You seriously can't tell me you've never had one. Come on, Baek, did you live under a rock your whole life?"

 

 

"No, but I would've liked to if it meant we wouldn't be having this conversation," he replies with a yawn. "I'm going to bed. Wake me up when school's out." And with that, he heads back to his room.

 

 

Jongin's moved since he went out to the living room. He's precariously spread out across the bed, but Baekhyun just navigates carefully, yanks the covers up, and crawls in next to him, legs barely touching. Sleep takes him almost the minute that he closes his eyes and he feels like he could sleep for years.

 

 

 

 

Baekhyun is ninety-eight percent sure that he'll like Busan. Jongin just doesn't—can't agree.

 

 

"I really don't think that's a good idea, hyung," he says, voice wavering. They're headed up the block in sweats, dying in the cruel humidity of the hot, summer Seoul day.

 

 

After stuffing his bag full with underwear, socks, and forking over Jongin's Harry Potter DVD box set and headphones (Baekhyun's got singed, courtesy of Chanyeol's genius idea to cook), Chanyeol bear hugged him, Kyungsoo told him to wash his balls, and Baekhyun decided to walk to Jongin back to his dorm. Like a gentleman would, of course. But mostly to—

 

 

"Come on! It'd be fun," Baekhyun whines. Jongin's expression sours at the mention of 'fun', but he can't blame him. Every time he's used the word, it involves some sort of club bouncing, unnecessary rounds of noraebang, or more 'power practise', as he calls it. None of which Jongin is allowed to drink at. "Your parents would love having a natural born comedian stay over and I'm a hit with the ladies."

 

 

"My sisters don't live there anymore."

 

 

Baekhyun grins and wags his brow, throwing an arm around Jongin's shoulder. "Good. We won't have to be as quiet, then." Jongin's face scrunches up, trying his best not to laugh.

 

 

"Is this your method of persuasion?" he asks, mock astonishment dripping from his voice. Baekhyun smacks him on the back and continues pushing him along, intent on getting his point across. With a little luck and a lot of groveling, Baekhyun thinks he can swing it.

 

 

"Yeah, obviously."

 

 

"I'm not convinced."

 

 

Hands outstretched, he pushes his index finger and thumb together, shoving the gesture in Jongin's face. "Not even this much?" he asks, concerned. Jongin's jaw tightens, and he can see the cogs turning in his head when it does, but he shakes his head anyway.

 

 

"I can't believe you're really trying to get me to bring you to my parents' house," he huffs out, using the back of his hand to clear the sweat from his forehead. "What gives, Baekhyun? You of all people—cooped up in a stranger's house for that long? Did Kyungsoo finally kick you out?"

 

 

Baekhyun weavles his arm in with Jongin's and presses himself against him for effect. It's too damn hot for this sort of thing, but he reminds himself it's all part of the act. "For your information, I do more laundry than Kyungsoo and Chanyeol combined. Kyungsoo's just picky about me washing my underwear with his 'after where I've been'," he recites, complete with air quotes. "Whatever that means. But… this surprisingly isn't about that."

 

 

Jongin's quite clearly looking at him from the corner of his eyes, and his face hasn't really changed. He looks confused and undeniably suspicious. "Then what's this about? You're not just looking for a vacation."

 

 

Baekhyun waits a moment, then shakes his head. They're almost back to his dorm and Baekhyun hasn't even explained himself yet. Let alone sealed the deal. When is Jongin leaving, he wonders.

 

 

"Well, if you really must know," he drawls, trying for suspense, "it's mostly for my own benefit. Of course." Jongin frowns. He continues anyway. "You suck at this whole teleporting thing and if you don't have someone to babysit you, who's to say you won't whip around Korea, end up in Pyeongyang on the border and get taken in by the North Korean government as a secret agent or something because of your unique powers?" Baekhyun paints it out with his hands like some elaborate headline of a newspaper.

 

 

"I don't think that's how that works, hyung," he says as they near his door, keys jingling as they come out of Jongin's pocket.

 

 

Baekhyun scoffs. "No shit, Sherlock. I'm just saying I can't have you screwing this up for me. Or Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, for that matter. And I know you haven't met them, but Luhan and Yixing, too. Someone's gotta make sure you don't blow your cover to your parents, or your entire neighbourhood. Or slice yourself in half, or get food poisoning or—"

 

 

"Slice myself in half?" Jongin cuts in, shaking Baekhyun off so he can unlock the door. "So basically you think I'm just gonna fuck everything up while I'm away. You're really not convincing me at all." If he's really observant, he can hear the tinge of anger in Jongin's voice, but he stays pretty calm otherwise. He unlocks the door and Baekhyun steps in first, taking in the view of stacked boxes. He can't believe that it's already been nine months—and now Jongin's leaving in a few hours.

 

 

"It's one of my best ideas. I don't see what the problem is," Baekhyun pouts, jutting out his lower lip as he turns away from the boxes to face Jongin.

 

 

When he refuses to answer his whiny pleas and just walks on to finish packing, Baekhyun fills in the silence. "You can put me on a leash, if that helps." Nothing. "I'm into that sort of thing."

 

 

"Baekhyun. I can't—" he says firmly, pausing to think as he heads for his room, box in hand. "I can't bring some guy home and expect my parents to be okay with it."

 

 

"You say it like it's a big deal. I'm not your boyfriend."

 

 

Jongin physically twitches at the mention of it. Frankly, it comes out a lot more spiteful than he means it to be, and it's obvious from the way it stings his throat on its way out. This conversation isn't going quite the way he'd planned it in his head. "No… But I can't, Baekhyun." And it sounds final.

 

 

Baekhyun catches his eyes for a moment, lingering, looking hard and a little confused. He almost feels bad for springing the idea on him—for imposing on the Kim family, but his stomach tightens at the thought of Jongin being on his own with his new, unharnessed abilities for that long. And maybe, if he digs deep, it's something more than that. He'll miss him, sure, the kid with wild bed head and a taste for late night rounds of Call of Duty, but he's become such an integral part of Baekhyun's everyday life that it seems somewhat wrong to see him off like any other classmate. This is Jongin. He’s not sure why it’s different, but that niggling feeling his chest won’t go away.

 

 

"I promise not to blow anything up, okay?" Jongin finally says after a stretch of silence. The corners of Baekhyun's lips curl up slightly.

 

 

"That's more Chanyeol's area of expertise, anyway.”

 

 

And that’s how the conversation ends. Baekhyun helps load up boxes, eats through the last of Jongin’s energy bars, and clears out Sehun’s hidden condom supply underneath Jongin’s sheets. By the time he gets the chance to check his phone, it’s well into the afternoon and Jongin’s ride will be here any minute. Jongin’s made the joke numerous times over the past couple days about transporting himself home, but Baekhyun refuses to acknowledge a single word of it. Frankly, he likes the Jongin with two arms, two legs, a head. It's just a big ‘I told you so’, waiting to happen.

 

 

Jongin takes the effort that Baekhyun won't and pulls him into a half hug when he's on his way out. He only talks to Jongin's parents for a few short minutes while hauling boxes into the back of the car and they're easily some of the most uncomfortable moments of his life. Jongin's dad wants to talk about the dream fulfillment he isn't achieving through his son's impending dance career, and his mother is too friendly—even if Baekhyun really does want to come visit for dinner sometime as thanks for taking care of 'her Jonginnie'. He barely reciprocates the gesture when Jongin jumps in the back seat and gives him his most charmingly dopey smile, handing waving wildly as they pull out.

 

 

And that's that. Gone for the summer, and an empty time slot for another person to inadequately fill in Baekhyun's schedule.

 

 

"You can always sleep in my bed, if you're feeling lonely," Chanyeol says that night to Baekhyun in the bathroom while he's brushing his teeth.

 

 

"I'd literally rather set myself on fire, thank you,” comes the muffled reply as he shakes his toothbrush at him.

 

 

When he falls into bed that night, it’s hard to think about anything else other than the fact that his room is missing a familiar warm body and will be for the remainder of the summer. He shoves the comforter between his legs, feet sticking out to avoid excessive sweating and face smashed into the pillow. Counting sheep has never worked before, and it would seem that tonight isn’t any different.

 

 

 

 

The first week is, according to Chanyeol, brutal.

 

 

“Would it be possible for you to leave the lights on? Don’t need to be welcomed by a fuckin’ strobe light party every time I walk in the room,” he huffs when he enters the kitchen, Baekhyun pooled on the table in a pathetic heap and bored out of his mind. “Dude. Just call him. Text him. Something.” Baekhyun just eyes him, apathetic.

 

 

“This isn’t about Jongin. I’m just bored. It’s a weekend and instead going and getting laid like I should be, I’m here.” He stretches out two fingers into a makeshift gun and aims right at the temple.

 

 

“Now whose fault is that?”

 

 

“Piss off.” There isn’t much of a bite in his tone.

 

 

Chanyeol gives up on trying to look for something to eat and slides into the seat across from Baekhyun. “I thought you applied for a few jobs. Vocal lessons or something? Escort? Can’t remember,” he says, reaching out to knock Baekhyun’s arms out from under his chin so his head flies toward the tabletop. Baekhyun swats at him. “Heard back from any of ‘em?”

 

 

“No. I guess I can always try Mr. Kwon about that assistant position. If I’m desperate.” Chanyeol almost ignores the distant lull of his voice, the detachment from everything that’s reality. Kyungsoo has a job, a pretty nice one in fact, and he’s hoping he can go a little longer by mooching off Kyungsoo’s salary from seven straight hours of whatever the hell it is he does.

 

 

Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “Certainly seems like you are. Could you be more transparent?” Baekhyun tries swinging at him again, missing when Chanyeol leans back with ease.

 

 

“You’re one to talk,” he says, eyes darting toward Kyungsoo’s room. And Chanyeol drops it, just like that. He’s been more of a couch potato than ever in the past week, and he refuses to trace it back to anything Jongin. When he heads to one of the chorale rooms to practise that evening, he cuts short the smile that’s curling on his lips when he remembers Jongin crashing into that very same piano, dazed and confused.

 

 

 

 

Baekhyun doesn’t even bother telling Chanyeol and Kyungsoo about his spur-of-the-moment expense on a bus ticket to Busan. And while he should feel guilty for up and leaving (as well as crashing at someone's house for who knows how long), the only thing he feels is the thrill of doing something on a whim. Not to mention the hope that the two bottles of cheap wine he grabbed will be a sufficient enough apology on both ends.

 

 

It’s times likes these that he wishes he could teleport like Jongin. That would make this a lot easier than crawling on some cramped, stuffy bus with one bag overhead and the other stuffed in his lap. The man next to him smells like a sewer and he’s almost positive the old lady a few seats away is undressing him with her eyes. He can drive, but he thinks it’s a bit much to snatch Kyungsoo’s car away for his getaway. He’s pretty sure that making himself scarce during his week to clean the kitchen is already punishment enough for them.

 

 

He falls asleep against the window, nearly misses one of his transfers, and falls asleep again on the last bus. If he even lets himself think for a moment about whether or not this makes his Stupidest Decisions list, he shakes the thought away with the phantom warmth of Jongin’s fingers on his neck.


	2. Sparks

“What the—”

 

 

Jongin’s expression is priceless.

 

 

“Surprise, asshole,” Baekhyun says once his feet have landed on solid ground. So it probably wasn’t the best idea to crawl up the side of Jongin’s apartment building and in through the window. It seemed pretty fucking epic in his head, swinging in through the window like some sort of superhero, but he almost trips over his own feet and frowns when he realises he still has to make a trip back down to get his bags that he’s hid in the bushes. “Happy to see me?”

 

 

Jongin scrambles to yank the bright blue spaceship sheets over his lower half, even though he’s only in boxers (and nothing that Baekhyun hasn’t seen before). “What the hell are you doing here?” he breathes. It’s almost 2AM, last Baekhyun checked, and just Jongin whispering to keep this all on the down low sends a shiver down his spine. He feels like a rebellious teenager all over again, sneaking out with alcohol, making out with pretty senior boys in the stairwell of their apartment building.

 

 

Baekhyun grins. He even spins for effect. The ‘ta-da’ is almost involuntary as it comes out of his mouth.

 

 

“It’s me, Byun Baekhyun. Your fairy godmother,” he says, taking a step closer. “I believe this is the part where I dress you up in some brand name shit and take you to a ball to meet your prince.”

 

 

Jongin cowers against the headboard where he’s slid up and out of his covers, eyes squinting in the darkness. It takes him a few, drowsy moments, but he finally has the mind enough to turn on the lamp on his nightstand. His hair is sticking up everywhere, adorably, eyelids a bit swollen with sleep. It’s actually pretty early for Jongin to be in bed if Baekhyun recalls their late nights cramming for tests and giggling like girls; Baekhyun got loopy past midnight, Jongin got snuggly and smiley. “I think I’m still dreaming…”

 

 

Baekhyun bounds over to the bed as Jongin begins rolling over, pulling the covers over his head when Jongin tries to bury himself in them again. “Come on, princess. This is possibly one of the best things that’s happened to you all summer.”

 

 

And from under the sheets, muffled, “It’s only been a week.” Baekhyun grins, finds that he can’t stop the corners of his mouth from wrenching themselves up at every word that comes out of Jongin’s mouth. He feel the happiness all the way to the tips of his ears.

 

 

“Exactly,” he whispers through his teeth.

 

 

He throws himself over the top of Jongin, flipping him over and pinning his wrists to the bed, watching with delight as his eyes fly open, every ounce of apathy gone. He feels Jongin’s legs coming up to kick him where it hurts, so he sits on them and leans downward, face so close to Jongin’s that he can hear him breathing. In the light, he even catches the quiver of Jongin’s lip.

 

 

“So,” he whispers, low, “how about you come down and help me get my bags?”

 

 

And that’s when he’s shoved off the bed.

 

 

 

 

“You do realise my parents are just down the hall, right.” It’s much less of a question, more of a warning. After fighting Jongin on the sheer brilliance of his idea to show up unannounced all the way downstairs to retrieve his measly amount of luggage, he’s taken to firmly informing Baekhyun of every detail that he has to watch for now that he’s here. And in between, an anxious comment about being found out, a rule-followers worried exclamations. Baekhyun’s sure that this visit isn’t good for a worrier like him.

 

 

“Of course,” he replies, putting a finger to his own lips as they curl up. “I’ll be quiet. Promise.”

 

 

Jongin sighs, pulling off his socks as he flops back onto his bed. “Remind me why you couldn’t use the front door?” he groans, watching intently as Baekhyun rummages through his bag and sheds his jeans in favour of a pair of dark sweatpants.

 

 

“Well, noise factor, obviously. But then there was also the whole element of surprise that was just much more achievable through the window,” he says very matter-of-factly, crawling into bed next to Jongin. “A grand guest has to make a grand entrance.” Jongin rolls his eyes and pushes against Baekhyun.

 

 

“And you think I’m letting you sleep in the bed?”

 

 

Baekhyun nuzzles against him, eyes widening. It’s a poor attempt at the puppy eyes that Chanyeol is so damn good at, but he tries it out anyway. “Yes?”

 

 

“No.” Baekhyun grips him tighter, wiggles in closer.

 

 

“Come on. Admit it. You’ve missed me,” he coos, so close to Jongin’s ear that he quickly itches at his ear with his shoulder from the tickle of his breath.

 

 

“Seriously, it’s only been a week,” he growls. But Baekhyun can feel him caving, arms going from a loose, limp hold to curling more definitely around Baekhyun’s waist. This position isn’t unfamiliar to them, but it feels especially meaningful when Baekhyun’s trekked several hundred miles across Seoul just to do this. To make sure that Jongin isn’t causing his family trouble, to see if the heat is making things worse for Jongin like it is for him. Kyungsoo yelled at him all week for busting the lights in the front room last Thursday, even though Chanyeol had only just burnt Kyungsoo’s toothbrush to a crisp.

 

 

“Hello?”

 

 

Baekhyun comes out of his reverie to Jongin waving hand in front of his face. “What?” Swimming in his own thoughts, he must’ve missed what Jongin said.

 

 

“Why does it matter so much?” he mumbles again, into Baekhyun’s hair. It’s too hot to be pressed up against each other like this and it’s even worse with the covers on, but he can’t say he cares too much about the sweat beading up at his hairline. Jongin always sweats more than him anyway.

 

 

“What do you mean?”

 

 

He’s already thinking of an answer before Jongin clarifies the question. He vaguely wonders if Jongin knows the answer, too. “Why does it matter if I transport myself halfway around the world and snap in half? Or if my parents find out?” Baekhyun snorts.

 

 

“Well, I kind of like you in one piece,” he says, impudent. “And as for your parents… Well. Not everyone has a head-of-PTA support system like Chanyeol’s overly enthusiastic cheerleader parents.” The next sentence catches in his throat, the sound of the bed creaking being the only thing he can hear. “And they could be like—well. Like my parents.”

 

 

At first he thought it was the anger—the disappointment that came with having a near-perfect first child—but later, as it manifested itself in distance and locked doors and missed high school choir concerts, fear seemed to be the more obvious reason for the disconnect. He hasn’t seen his mom in months, but it’s almost been year since he’s seen his dad. He doesn’t tell Jongin that, but he hopes the tone will carry enough of the message that he won’t question it. And he doesn’t.

 

 

“I’m hiding you under the bed during the day. Or in the closet,” Jongin says quietly, fingers stroking Baekhyun’s hair. Well, that’s a relief. He’s finally opening up to the idea of stashing a wild Baekhyun in his room.

 

 

“I can and will blind you. You should be celebrating my presence.”

 

 

“Shut up,” he says, yawning. “You woke me up. I’ll start celebrating when I know you’re asleep.”

 

 

And just like that, tangled up in each other’s arms on a way too warm summer night, he hums in agreement and falls asleep. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

 

 

 

 

The next morning gets a little difficult. Baekhyun just thanks God that Jongin’s mother has the decency to knock before swinging the door open while Baekhyun crawls underneath the blankets so fast that Jongin’s ankles knock painfully into his shin. It’s surprisingly not the first time he’s stayed the night at someone’s house, only to have to sneak past parents in the kitchen on his way out, but the circumstances are obviously quite different.

 

 

Apart from the actual escape, Baekhyun hasn’t really planned anything else in regards to this trip. Since he’s not really allowed to leave Jongin’s room unless both of them are out (and Jongin’s mother does have part time work in the afternoon apparently), he’s forced to lie on Jongin’s bed and play around on his phone for several hours while Jongin goes out shopping with his mom that first morning. He’s knee deep in texts and missed calls from Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, but he only takes the effort to answer them both back with a quick, In Busan. See you ladies later :) ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Kyungsoo says he’s going to kill him. Chanyeol tells him to use protection. He throws his phone at the end of the bed and reads instead.

 

 

When Jongin finally gets home, he’s by himself, his mom already off to work. Baekhyun’s asleep in his bed, drool peeking out the corner of his mouth and arm slung over the side. Jongin lands right on top of him when he jumps on the bed, and Baekhyun releases a steady stream of curses as the air whooshes out of his lungs. It’s barely noon and after Jongin rambles about an octopus that tried to kill him at the market, they both conk out again, one of Jongin’s sturdy legs flung over the knob of Baekhyun’s hip.

 

 

Baekhyun wakes up first. Once he pokes Jongin in the ribs a few obnoxious times, he’s awake too, and less than excited when Baekhyun suggests they go outside and practise for a bit.

 

 

“But it’s vacation,” Jongin reiterates for the third time, voice coming out in a heady whine. "You come to my home unannounced and now you wanna work me to death. This doesn’t seem fair.”

 

 

Baekhyun jumps to his feet, whirling around to ruffle Jongin’s hair. His stomach twists every time he sees him post-sleep, all wild haired and swollen lips. If he hadn’t slept so much already, he might drag himself right back into bed and wind himself around Jongin just a little longer. He shudders at the sickeningly sweet thought. “Look, you’ve already gotten lazy. Seriously, it’s been a week,” he mocks, really only amusing himself.

 

 

They practise on the side of the building. The goal is to go just a fraction of an inch farther, each time, avoiding as much bodily harm as possible. The days of spontaneous nosebleeds and cataclysmic fainting are long gone, but there’s the occasional headache now and then that sometimes even persists for the remainder of the day. It’s more challenging here since Baekhyun isn’t really familiar with the area and Jongin’s not good enough to go anywhere he hasn’t seen before (Google Earth is surprisingly helpful for teleporters, Kyungsoo’d figured out), but Jongin’s childhood memories of the surrounding city manages to get him through an hour of zapping back and forth, one geographic coordinate to the next. In Seoul, it was Baekhyun doing the work, making him study maps and landmarks and carting him around from district to district until he was ready to teleport there. His record stands at the outskirts of Bucheon, a good twelve miles or so out from the university, but anything farther than that and the headaches just get splitting.

 

 

Jongin tries (and fails) to get Baekhyun to attempt joint teleportation, and groans when Baekhyun lectures him for a good five minutes about how it’s really only a theory, it might not even be possible, one of us could sliced clean in half, etc., etc.… Yixing is the only one that’s ever claimed to have met other teleporters, so his information’s a jumble of wives’ tales and rumours and shaky personal accounts—likely just as reliable as Jongin’s claims that he’s successfully transported a bee with him to the dance room by accident. He’s too scared out his fucking mind to remind Jongin that he’d successfully been the one to transport them back into his dorm that first time they met, but he’s afraid that even mentioning it will put unrealistic ideas into Jongin’s head. He’d wiped clean out that first time, and Baekhyun just thinks that it’s luck that kept him alive then. He’s not taking his chances again. Not yet, at least.

 

 

Jongin gets a good nine miles out before coming back and collapsing on the grass, clothes drenched. When Baekhyun asks about it, Jongin replies with an exhausted, “Irrigated farm land, not the field I used to play in,” and Baekhyun loses it, doubling over until he ribs ache and his eyes are watery. Doesn’t quite beat the time that Jongin supposedly knocked over some crotchety ahjumma who then came after him with her umbrella, but it still makes his list—whatever that list is.

 

 

They down a late lunch at some convenient store that Jongin remembers going to in high school and Baekhyun lets Jongin entertain him with stories about sneaking out to watch dance competitions and taking some girl to his favourite ballet when all she wanted to do (and ended up doing) was stick her tongue down his throat. Baekhyun wonders how he hit it off with a kid who’s most rebellious leap during his teen years involved badmouthing foreigners on the subway and sneaking into extra movies after he only paid for the first, but things seem oddly balanced like this. Baekhyun’s swapped stories before, but as far as a lack of a moral compass goes, he definitely makes Jongin’s anecdotes look like nursery rhymes.

 

 

When they’re back in the comfort of Jongin’s room—the old Nintendo having been uncovered from the depths of his frighteningly cluttered closet—Jongin abruptly lowers his head into Baekhyun’s lap. He starts to lose his ability to kick Baekhyun’s ass in their heated game of Super Mario Brothers, but he doesn’t move and Baekhyun doesn’t care.

 

 

“I’m glad you came,” he mumbles from his lap. Baekhyun can’t see his expression, but he almost hears the smile in his voice. It makes his ears heat up and his gut churns as he frowns. He’s only ever touchy with Jongin when he’s trying to persuade him or when he wants something, so the way that this scene plays out so naturally has his head swimming. He bats at him with his controller and scoffs when Jongin loses like he’s never played the game before in his life.

 

 

“I want a fucking rematch. You weren’t even trying!” he grunts in frustration, choosing to put Jongin’s earlier confession out of his mind. Jongin just looks up at him and gives him this big, sappy grin, all teeth and scrunched up eyes. He finds it infuriatingly difficult to spit fire when he’s looking at him like that, but he throws a fit anyway and continues to demand another game, nearly shitting himself when they hear the front door. He tells Jongin repeatedly to shut up when he laughs too hard at the sight of Baekhyun shoving himself in the tiny closet.

 

 

Jongin steps out for a good ten minutes and comes back with a glass of water, handing it to him through a small slit in the door and desperately tries to contain his laughter when he says that this is going to be more fun than he’d anticipated. Baekhyun snatches it from him, takes a swig, and tells him go suck a dick.

 

 

 

 

They fall into a routine: Baekhyun commandeers the bed sometime past midnight with Jongin forced to wriggle his way in, the both of them getting only a few hours of sleep before an alarm goes off to remind them to move Baekhyun to Jongin’s sisters’ old room. Or at least something temporary until Jongin’s mother comes in and demands that Jongin gets up too and isn’t idle all day. They don’t have much freedom until the afternoon and Baekhyun spends a good portion of those mornings at the nearest coffee shops and PC bangs waiting for Jongin to text him. After that it’s practise, wandering around and checking out the local attractions, and more pathetic rounds of Super Mario Brothers—Baekhyun totally lets him win.

 

 

When Kyungsoo calls him five days into his trip, it's to ask when he's going to start paying child support; apparently Chanyeol is worse than Baekhyun when it comes to keeping up with household chores and is driving Kyungsoo up the wall. Baekhyun never noticed it before, but he thinks it's because he's always managed to wiggle out of the mundane stuff by convincing Kyungsoo it'd be shamefully inadequate if he were the one to clean whatever it is. Kyungsoo would just pick up the slack after reluctantly agreeing. At least he isn't expected to clean here. Not that he can make much of a mess when he's eating out for almost every meal and living out of his suitcase.

 

 

Later that day when they're out at the park, Jongin beats his record, reaching out past eighteen miles and coming back with the biggest smile Baekhyun's ever seen. He says he feels a little lightheaded, but it's a surprisingly fair trade for the distance he's just gone. Baekhyun wraps him up in a tight embrace, tries to steady his pulse when he feels Jongin's lips brush against his neck as he leans down to Baekhyun's height and buries his face in the crook of his shoulder. Something in him stirs when Jongin says that he wishes he could take him along every time, wander around the places that he ends up and enjoy them longer than ten minutes. Maybe one day he'll have the energy for something like that.

 

 

"The King," he says that night when Jongin walks into the bedroom, shaking his wet head of hair, freshly showered. "I'm impressed."

 

 

Jongin rolls his eyes and crashes down on the bed next to him. "Still seems pathetic for someone who essentially has the ability to zip through space at the speed of light. We could be in Europe right now or something." When Jongin's fingers lace with his, he freezes.

 

 

"Europe, huh?" He cranes his neck so he can see Jongin's face. It's dark, but there's some light coming in through the window from the moon and the city lights. He dims them the most microscopic amount and squeezes his eyes shut. Lets the tips of his fingers trace the lines in Jongin's hand, listens to his rhythmic breathing. He breathes in sharply, like the scent of Jongin's coconut shampoo'll fade and presses closer just so he can feel the heat radiating off of his skin.

 

 

There’s something different about tonight, even though they’ve done this several hundred times, in school and out. Like he can feel the thrum of excitement through Jongin’s veins the harder he presses, like they’re both feeling post-success glory swallow them whole. It feels strangely like Baekhyun’s proud of him, and this achievement just makes this short time together so much more precious. Sounds sappy the minute the thought runs through his head, but for once he doesn’t try to push it out. Just scoots closer, licks his lips.

 

 

When Jongin notices that he's staring, he bends toward him like a magnet, eyes visibly crinkling in the darkness, foreheads touching. They could stay like this for days, weeks, months and Baekhyun couldn’t complain. "Hyung…"

 

 

It takes a couple of slow, drowsy seconds for Jongin's hand to make it's way to the small of Baekhyun's back, shirt bunched up with skin exposed and burning against Jongin's calloused hands. But it takes half a second for Baekhyun to see where this is going—to see where this has always been going, and he pulls back with arduous effort, hands on Jongin’s chest stopping either of them from moving. He sees the look on Jongin’s face, only a glimmer of disappointment when the right amount of light shines on it, and he suddenly feels like he’s cracking in half.

 

 

He decidedly rolls over, careful to avoid Jongin’s gaze. He grumbles out a quick, “I’m tired, goodnight,” and screws his eyes shut, already trying to glaze over the past few minutes with other things. He hears Jongin as he audibly clears his throat, and rolls over too. They’re only a few inches apart, but it suddenly seems like miles.

 

 

When their routine starts all over again the next day, they both carry on like nothing happened. And for all intents and purposes, nothing did. But as Baekhyun wraps a sure arm around Jongin’s waist later that afternoon, listening to Jongin talk about ballet terminology mixed with travel plans for when he’s a better teleporter, he wonders if it would be so bad for something to actually happen.

 

 

 

 

Between afternoons of studying for a summer cram school that Jongin’s mother’s forced on him and eating like twelve year old boys in the height of puberty, something does happen, but it’s not the something that Baekhyun’s been fretting over for the past week. Jongin’s running through some techniques he’s learned that help him while he teleports and Baekhyun is vegging out on the grass of some big field they found, eyes glued to his phone. Because of a late night out with his parents the day before, Jongin’s exhausted and literally hasn’t stopped complaining about how he would rather sleep since they left home. His parents are in Jeju for the weekend—some romantic getaway or some shit—and Baekhyun’s more than happy to have the mornings to sleep in until Monday.

 

 

It’s Baekhyun’s third week here and he has to wonder when ‘going home’ will have to mean back to his shared apartment with Chanyeol and Kyungsoo again. Until then, when Jongin jogs over to end their session and says ‘let’s go home’, it means home with Jongin, home with the only person he really cares about seeing these days anyway.

 

 

“I think that one day might’ve been a fluke,” Baekhyun says teasingly as he pulls himself up off the ground, in reference to Jongin’s record-setting distance. Jongin throws something just as snarky back at him, but he doesn’t catch it before his hands are gripping his shoulders and whining again about going home. His reply is caught in his throat when he feels it—that same feeling he remembers from their very first meeting, that inexplicable squashing of every one of his cells as he parts with the ground with a small pop.

 

 

And just as quickly as it happens, he’s in Jongin’s front room, lets out a shaky breath in one, ungraceful huff like he’s been holding it in. His knees buckle and he falls into Jongin’s arms like jello. Vision hazy, ears ringing, he takes a few minutes to come down from it.

 

 

“Hyung? Hyung, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” he hears Jongin rambling, setting him down on the couch. His first real, coherent thought is wondering why this didn’t happen on his first go, but he doesn’t have the patience to figure it out. It’s not like it hurts, it just feels weird, a bit like he’s been strangely violated by some force of nature and it’s an odd two minutes of getting back on his feet before feeling perfectly normal again.

 

 

He brushes himself off, shakes his head and tells him not to worry about it. So, it’s possible. And it was just fine. He mostly wants to hit himself for being so paranoid all this time, but it’s a pointless exercise. Now, it’s just another thing for Jongin to practise.

 

 

Jongin consistently feels bad about it for the next couple of house, constantly asking Baekhyun how his head feels, if he can get him something to drink, if he wants to bed to himself tonight. It’s overkill, but Baekhyun’s still too speechless to appear the slightest bit relieved about the situation. He’s glad that Jongin can do it, but it also opens up a slew of other dangerous doors, ones where Jongin teleports with one person too many, too far, and that’s that. Kyungsoo was right: when did he start worrying so much?

 

 

“I think I should go back soon. To the apartment,” Baekhyun announces when they’re curled up on the couch watching reruns of variety shows. He feels Jongin shifting next to him, the arm draped across his shoulders sliding off so he can turn to look at him, expectantly. “I don’t know, I just think that you’re doing fine. I’m not really helping anything here. Or hurting it. Kyungsoo’s about to go crazy without me, surprisingly.”

 

 

“Already? What happened to you forcing yourself on me for the rest of the summer?” Jongin asks, genuinely curious.

 

 

“Chanyeol said it’s not the same without me, and you, frankly. You snore.” Jongin swats at him for that.

 

 

“I do not!” he snaps, shoving Baekhyun playfully but successfully launching him off the couch and onto the floor. He lands with a dull thud and turns around to smack Jongin’s shin. Jongin doesn’t always snore, but enough to be used as blackmail. “You drool, you know. In the mornings, your mouth is always all gross and wet—”

 

 

Baekhyun battles his way back into his spot, now suppressing a growing grin. Jongin’s already bursting into high pitched giggles as Baekhyun holds his face into the couch. “Nice to know you were looking,” he says, his tone flirting with the more suggestive side. The show that’s playing becomes background noise and is completely forgotten when Baekhyun pulls himself into Jongin’s lap.

 

 

“It’s kind of hard to miss when you look like this.” Jongin reenacts it, spreads himself out in a five-pointed star across the couch and lets his jaw hang open and his eyes cross. Baekhyun punches him in the gut for that.

 

 

It’s right then that the air gets thicker, that Jongin seems to realise the position they’re in, and Baekhyun thinks it’s last week’s incident all over again. Except they don’t have to hide. Baekhyun doesn’t have to hide. If he feels like admitting it (and he doesn't), some similar scene has made its way into his dreams for the past couple of nights, so having Jongin pinned to the couch while he looks at him in awe is hardly shocking. But for being as unsurprised as he is, the blood in veins decides it makes more sense to pump through his system at a twice its regular speed. His head's pounding.

 

 

Jongin reaches out slowly, like he’s trying not to scare him off, and barely traces his fingers across Baekhyun’s jaw. He’s clearly testing the waters, making sure that this won’t be a repeat of last week, and tugs the corners of his mouth up just slightly when Baekhyun leans into the touch. Baekhyun actually feels the twist of his stomach when he falls forward just a little more, close enough to where their noses touch. Even with the TV humming in the background, the only thing Baekhyun hears is the sound of Jongin breathing, heavy and slow. All he wants to do is close the distance between them. He realises that's all he's ever wanted. Maybe even from the beginning.

 

 

"Jongin," he whispers, winding one of his hands into Jongin's hair.

 

 

"Hyung—"

 

 

"Touch me." The words come out in a gruff, needy whisper as he shifts a bit, lets his body naturally lean to the right with the rest of him as he closes in on the side of Jongin's face, placing a feather-light kiss just beneath his ear. From all the stories he's heard, Jongin's as inexperienced as any typical middle school church boy and he only hopes that he's reading this right. That Jongin's finally caught on, feels the sudden ache in his chest like Baekhyun does whenever his hands slide across exposed skin, understands what he means when he asks him to put his hands on him. "It's okay," he says belatedly when he feels Jongin stalling, bringing Jongin's hands upward to rest on his waist.

 

 

"Is this a good idea?" Jongin asks, timid, fingers crumpling in the folds of Baekhyun's shirt as his forehead creases with concern.

 

 

Baekhyun pulls back for a second, just to get a better look at the confused look on Jongin's face. "I said it's okay, so it's okay. If you don't want to…" He's not even quite sure what he's referring to—how far Jongin is willing to go, he doesn't know. He doesn't want to push him into anything he doesn't want to do, but he also wants Jongin to bend underneath him, to shout his name a thousand times before coming undone, to kiss him. That much suddenly becomes painfully clear.

 

 

Jongin shakes his head and pushes off the couch a little more so he can meet Baekhyun in the middle. "No, I—I want to. I want you." And then his mouth his on his, moving against it, proving it. It feels simple, far from rushed, still extremely tentative. Then Baekhyun's tongue comes out to trace the swell of his lower lip, laving the roof of his mouth and letting his hands wander up Jongin's sides. Jongin gasps into the kiss, head falling back when Baekhyun fastens himself more closely to him, groins brushing as he more tightly straddles him.

 

 

He quickly decides that he could kiss Jongin forever if he let him, but the impatient slide of Jongin's hands underneath his shirt prove that to be impossible. He presses Jongin more insistently into the couch as he moves his mouth to his jaw and down to his neck, sucking intently on a spot just off to the right of a big vein. Squirming beneath him and already panting, Baekhyun thinks that this is exactly what he wants too. He wants Jongin and nothing else. He wants to press him into the couch, up against the wall, into the mattress and fuck him silly, all to let him know that this past year has meant something. Took them long enough, but as he feels blunt nails scrape along the length of his back, he can't begin to care.

 

 

And when Baekhyun suggests they move to the bedroom, Jongin's so wrapped up in this that he can't seem to let his lips leave some part of Baekhyun long enough for them to get much farther than past the kitchen and into the hallway, where they stumble against the wall and Jongin hugs himself closer as he kisses him, hands twisting in Baekhyun's hair. With some effort, they finally make their way into Jongin's room, Baekhyun already tugging at Jongin's shirt.

 

 

"Off," he manages between kisses, helping Jongin yank the garment off over his head. He pushes him backwards, toppling over him as Jongin's legs hit the wooden frame and he falls over onto the bed. Like he so easily does, Jongin's already sweating and Baekhyun relishes the feeling of heated skin under his hands at they skate up his chest, lifting Jongin's body toward him from the shoulders as he sucks another kiss on the underside of his jaw.

 

 

Then Jongin's laughing, eyes scrunching up as Baekhyun starts working at his belt buckle. He slows down and looks up. "What?"

 

 

"We're actually doing this," he says breathlessly, running his fingers down Baekhyun's arms. Baekhyun sits up a little, still straddling him, and scoots up so he can plant another kiss on Jongin's lips to shut him up.

 

 

"You sound surprised," Baekhyun mumbles in reply, grin spreading across his face at the way Jongin's nose crinkles. Then, a fresh wave of worry spreading through his chest, it occurs to him, "Jongin… Have you ever…?"

 

 

Jongin catches on quickly and shakes his head. Baekhyun's fucked a lot of guys and girls down the road (well, 'a lot' being relative), but as he watches the ripple of Jongin's taut muscles under his fingers he remembers that he might be alone in this accomplishment. And sure enough, slanting his mouth across the Jongin's fluttering pulse as he tugs at his hair makes him think that he's never been touched like this before. Hasn't had a tongue down his the flat of his sternum, doesn't shudder when something other than his own right hand brushes up against his crotch and elicits a high, heady pant from Jongin's throat. Jongin laughs, low and nervous in embarrassment, hands coming up to cover his eyes at the sounds he's making.

 

 

"Come on," Baekhyun croons, reaching up to peel Jongin's hands away, "We don't have to be quiet." His other hand works deftly at the button and zipper of Jongin's jeans, taking a second to press his thumbs into the the dip of Jongin's hips, watching the tremor go through his body in response.

 

 

Before he can get his pants down a single inch, Jongin's hand is on the nape of his neck, pulling him down into another kiss. He still kisses slowly, lips moving like he's unsure of everything, and it takes Baekhyun scraping his teeth across his lower lip and catching it between them to coax Jongin out of his passive, neat movements. Then he's really kissing back—mouth moving with Baekhyun's, sloppy, wet and dirty, hands travelling underneath his shirt like he needs this. Baekhyun ruts his hips forward, pushes himself against Jongin's body, tells him silently that he needs this, too.

 

 

"—Seriously?" he hears Jongin's muffled reply as he detaches himself from Jongin's mouth, only to move back to his neck to plant bruising kisses down the length of his collarbones and across his shoulder. He's dimmed the lights, slowly letting them fade to a warm glow and then Jongin's laughing again.

 

 

"Hey, this is what my powers are practically meant for," he retorts, catching Jongin's fond gaze before dipping down and smiling against his neck. Just for show, he makes the lights overhead and the lamp cycle through the entire spectrum, and Jongin lazily shoves at him. "There's a reason I was a hit with the ladies."

 

 

"What, the football players didn't appreciate the lowlights and rose petals?" Jongin says, gripping the back of Baekhyun's jeans. From here, even Baekhyun can hear Jongin's heartbeat thundering in his ribcage.

 

 

"There were never any rose petals, dumbass," he says, hoisting himself but up and pinning Jongin's wrists on either side of his head. He can hear the breath catch in Jongin's throat. "I'm classier than that."

 

 

After kissing his lips swollen, Jongin finally gets Baekhyun out of his shirt. He's still a little tentative about every step, but Baekhyun thinks that he likes it, the way that Jongin pauses before looking straight at him and starts on the buttons of his shirt.

 

 

"Can I…?" he asks when Baekhyun's shirt is somewhere in the corner of the room. As if he needs to ask permission. Baekhyun just guides his hands along his torso, and down to the buckle of his jeans.

 

 

Despite his initial shyness, Jongin takes over, reaches past Baekhyun's underwear and wraps his hand around the base of his dick and drags it up, thumb ghosting across the tip. Baekhyun whines against the skin of Jongin's shoulder, burying his head in the crook. The pressure of Jongin's hand is making his head light and the edges of his vision fuzzy. The quick movements aren't very practised but there's already wetness gathering at the tip, his body tensing in tandem with Jongin's, arching into the stuttering pulls and panting shallowly. The tight feeling is already building in his stomach, warm and buzzing.

 

 

Baekhyun's teeth clench as he pulls back, "Jongin, wait—" he says, stopping Jongin by the wrist, pulling his hand out. He doesn't want to come—not yet. He hasn't even touched Jongin, and he can feel him shaking with desire beneath him. He sits back and shimmies out of his jeans, then takes to ridding Jongin of his. When they're both completely naked, Baekhyun takes a long couple of seconds to admire the person in front of him. Skin shiny with perspiration, muscles toned and bones jutting out perfectly for Baekhyun to run his tongue along the protrusions and valleys. How did he go all this time without realising what he was missing?

 

 

Jongin's dick is flushed red against his stomach, already leaking. So, Baekhyun presses Jongin by his shoulders into the sheets of the unmade bed and smiles when Jongin's eyes meet his, smirks when his fingernails run the lightest trail along the shaft and a breathless fuck slips past Jongin's lips. He wants this to feel amazing, wants Jongin to feel so good that he feels this through his fingertips and feels it for days, and that's admittedly an odd desire for him. But he lays Jongin back against the pillows and kisses him square on the lips anyway, grinning widely into it.

 

 

"Can I try something?" Baekhyun asks, despite telling Jongin earlier that he doesn't need to ask permission, just take what he wants. Jongin bites his lip and nods, eyes wide as he observes, Baekhyun moving back and lowering himself. His fingers dig into the crest of Jongin's hips, lips smacking when he's at eye level with his dick. Experimentally he takes the tip in his mouth and sucks.

 

 

Baekhyun also decides he likes the sounds that Jongin makes. He's whining, high and in the back of his throat and Baekhyun vaguely wonders how his roommates would feel about it being his ringtone.

 

 

He tongues the underside, places a steady hand around the base to make up for what he's missing, and peeks up at Jongin's face from underneath his eyelashes, reveling in how his jaw drops when he does something especially good and his hands tighten in his hair.

 

 

"Baekhyun—" His fingernails are digging into his scalp and Baekhyun knows he's close, feels Jongin's legs kicking up beside his head and back arching against the bed. "Hyung."

 

 

He pulls away with a wet pop and places his hands on either side of him, letting him cool down.

 

 

"Why'd…you stop?" Jongin breathes. Baekhyun drags himself upward again, presses another wanton kiss to Jongin's lips and just smirks.

 

 

"So needy," he mumbles and narrowly avoids the swing of Jongin's arm to his shoulder. "Wait a second." And when Jongin's finally breathing somewhat normal again, he latches onto his hips again, pulls their groins flush against each other and rolls against him—a touch so light that Jongin's hips are bucking up, seeking more friction than Baekhyun's willing to give him.

 

 

He reaches a hand between them and pulls at their dicks together, Jongin's head rolling back in response and Baekhyun's brain going blank from relief. Burying his head in the crook of Jongin's neck again, he starts loosely and burns with an infuriatingly slow pace just to watch Jongin's array of expressions, listens to himself whimper like it's an out-of-body experience, scratches at the skin of Jongin's neck with his teeth as he moans. Then he's kissing him just as slowly but he hears Jongin whining his name again, and it's that reason alone that makes him want to continue like this. He needs to hear his name, dredged up as it rolls off Jongin's tongue, so he kisses him harder, pumps faster.

 

 

A few more minutes of increasingly faster strokes and laboured breaths and heavy gasps, and Jongin's arching off the bed again. Baekhyun's breathing him in, calling his name when he feels the heat in his stomach pooling and the muscles in his legs going taut. He tightens his grip, pulls twice, and then Jongin's spilling into his palm.

 

 

When Baekhyun follows a few seconds after, Jongin's name on his lips, his other hand digging into Jongin's thigh, the fucking lightbulb in the lamp bursts. He doesn't think he's come so hard in his life. The shards across the nightstand are in agreement and Jongin jerks his head in the direction of the sound. Baekhyun shrugs, body shaking with breathy laughs.

 

 

When they finally come down from it, Jongin's still holding Baekhyun against him like he'll float away if he lets go. Baekhyun lazily mouths at his collar bone, heaves out a shaky breath, and jolts when Jongin starts laughing.

 

 

"I feel like—should I say something?" he asks awkwardly, pitching his voice low as he pulls Baekhyun closer into the circle of his arms. Baekhyun just looks up at him, smirking.

 

 

"Don't ruin this for me," he mutters. The afterglow is something he hasn't enjoyed in years. Quickies in the bathroom, one night mistakes. Even with come drying on his stomach (his dick twitching at the thought), and the room at least fifty degrees warmer than when they first stumbled in, sweat beading across his forehead and back, lying here feels right. This is right.

 

 

He pulls Jongin closer, shutting his eyes. "If you snore tonight, I swear I will kick you out of bed." And Jongin laughs, nuzzling closer as Baekhyun pulls the blanket over them.

 

 

"And you're fixing the lamp tomorrow. You're just lucky I didn't teleport or something."

 

 

Baekhyun supposes he can't really argue with that. So he doesn't, just curls up against him and tells Jongin to shut up and close his eyes before things get too awkward, falling asleep with a smile on his face.

 

 

 

 

The next day, Baekhyun fixes the lamp. Begrudgingly, but he does it. The morning was spent in bed, waking up next to a warm body and a shy Jongin. When Baekhyun laces their fingers together and Jongin gives him this toothy grin that reaches his eyes, the shyness fades and Baekhyun immediately scratches this trip off his Stupidest Decisions list. He starts a new list instead; there's hardly anything on it, but maybe his best decisions can start with this one.

 

 

Jongin's parents aren't back until Monday night, so the house is theirs for the remainder of Sunday and most of Monday. Baekhyun thinks that he should take this slow, let the previous night sink in before anything letting this progress any further, but he finds himself trapped against the kitchen counter that afternoon, hands finding purchase in Jongin's hair as he persuades him with an insistent let me and lets Baekhyun's sweats fall to the floor.

 

 

From there, it's like Jongin can't get enough, can't detach himself from Baekhyun for a single second, and it's the same thing over and over again that night, the next morning—the rest of the week. He's only surprised that it didn't happen sooner, but he blames it all on his own naïveté for thinking from the start that the only thing that mattered was Jongin's shiny new powers and lesson after lesson on controlling them. There were days where he should've known, times when Jongin rested in the crook of his arm when Sehun was trying to talk to him, nights where Jongin stayed up late with Baekhyun while he studied just to keep him from crashing at his desk. That should've told him everything he needed to know.

 

 

They spend their week engrossed in each other and even though Baekhyun finds it a bit sickening how easy it is, he immediately changes his mind when Jongin cocks his brow, gives him this look and presses him into the nearest surface, trying to stay quiet underneath the covers.

 

 

And he thinks that he doesn't ever want it to stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally had an ending in place with far more drama and blood (namely, Jongin being a stupid, cocky brat and thinking he could teleport much farther, only to nearly lose an arm), but there just wasn't room and it didn't seem to fit. Maybe one day I'll come back to this one, who knows. ~surprise, asshole~


End file.
